MEA moves to new plantUtility has own power supply after transition into new gas-fueled Eklutna plant Alan Bailey Petroleum News
May 1 was something of a red-letter day for power utility Matanuska Electric Association, as the utility finally switched over to supplying its own electricity from its new power plant at Eklutna, northeast of Anchorage.
After several years of planning, design and construction, the Eklutna plant actually started to ramp up its operations in December, when the first of its 10 massive Wartsila reciprocating engines fired up. By Jan. 31 four of the engines became commercially available, with all 10 engines then being operational on March 27, Julie Estey, Matanuska Electric’s director of public relations, has told Petroleum News.
Delay in startup The electric utility had originally planned on a full startup of the power plant at the end of 2014, the time at which a previous arrangement expired, under which the utility had been purchasing much of its power from Anchorage-based Chugach Electric Association. But, following some issues that arose during the installation and testing of the equipment at the plant, Matanuska Electric had to delay the startup into the first quarter of 2015 - the utility formed an agreement with Chugach Electric to continue purchasing power from the Anchorage utility until the end of March, although the utilities subsequently extended that agreement through to the end of April.
Under the agreement, Chugach Electric undertook to buy power equivalent to at least the output from four of the Eklutna engines, Estey said. Essentially, Chugach Electric was buying some of its power from Matanuska Electric while also selling power back to Matanuska Electric, to fill the Matanuska and Susitna valleys utility’s needs.
This arrangement enabled Chugach Electric to test its capabilities to remotely control the Eklutna plant, while also enabling Matanuska Electric to rotate the engines at Eklutna out of service, to conduct initial routine maintenance on the equipment, Estey commented.
Now, after April 30, with the agreement with Chugach Electric having come to an end, Matanuska Electric is obtaining its power from the new Eklutna plant, and from hydropower systems at Eklutna and at Bradley Lake on the Kenai Peninsula, Estey said. However, Chugach Electric is providing power and natural gas dispatch services for the Eklutna plant, under a separate agreement designed to help Matanuska Electric transition into becoming a power generation business, rather than simply providing electricity distribution services to its customers.
Mainly because of the cost of the gas supply for the Eklutna plant, Matanuska Electric customers will see rate increases as a consequence of the plant coming on line, the utility has said.
Dual fuel Although planning for a power generation facility that primarily uses natural gas as fuel, Matanuska Electric opted for the use of reciprocating engines rather than turbine generators, to enable dual-fuel operation, with the possibility of running the engines on diesel fuel as an alternative to gas. This arrangement, in which the engines can seamlessly switch between the two fuels, protects the generation system against any shortfall in the gas supply.
In addition, with having 10 reciprocating engines, it is easy to rapidly vary the power output from the plant, thus potentially enabling the plant to add value to the Alaska Railbelt power grid by counterbalancing the fluctuations in power output from non-firm power systems such as wind farms.
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